Now that decision is coming back to bite FilmOn and its eccentric owner, Alki David. FilmOn and David were slapped with a $90,000 contempt order on Friday—$10,000 for each day that it kept distributing network TV channels.

This isn't the first time FilmOn and David have tried to piggy-back on the strategy of another would-be TV-over-Internet pioneer. When an earlier company called ivi TV tried to fight in court to get Internet broadcasts defined as a "cable system," that legal argument was shot down. FilmOn surprised ivi TV's founder by pursuing that same legal strategy at the same time. But it didn't work.

US District Judge Naomi Buchwald—who shut down both ivi TV and FilmOn—found FilmOn in violation of its injunction not to infringe TV companies' copyrights "by any means."

Now Buchwald has slapped FilmOn with a $90,000 fine for violating that order. David, who plans to appeal the judge's order, is not too happy about the decision, he told Ars in an e-mail.

Buchwald "largely relied on unauthenticated and inadmissible news articles" to find him in contempt, David said.

That's not how Buchwald saw it. In her order (PDF), Buchwald seems particularly set off by the fact that David actually sent out a press release after the Aereo decision that boasted that the company "continued to make available to FilmOn subscribers across the country the local broadcasts of eighteen major American cities, including New York."

FilmOn never had permission from the Copyright Office, the judge went on to note (and neither does Aereo). While the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo was subject to copyright law because it essentially looked like a cable system, that doesn't mean Aereo, or FilmOn, will be allowed to get the legal benefits of being a cable company by simply paying the government-set cable retransmission fees in order to re-broadcast.

She also noted that David's behavior was a major contrast to Aereo, which accepted its loss and tried to get a cable license from the Copyright Office. FilmOn failed to obtain a license.

"FilmOn has demonstrated a repeated willingness to flout the authority of the federal judiciary, and it is essential for this Court to make clear the obvious: the Injunction and the Judgment are not mere suggestions, but are orders that demand compliance."

"Far more developed"

According to David, the press release he sent out was meant to inform subscribers they would still have access to some broadcast content—but not to the content of the major TV broadcasters who sued him.

The TV-over-Internet service offered by FilmOn was called "teleporter," and it used small antennas, like Aereo. That system was also used in Aereo's legal argument—the idea that with an antenna for each customer, it was simply renting equipment for consumers enjoying free over-the-air television.

While Aereo only provided users with their local stations, FilmOn transmitted distant signals over the Internet. Perhaps the biggest difference was that while Aereo had a well-thought-out, although ultimately not successful, legal and business strategy, FilmOn pursued a similarly high-stakes copyright battle with a shoot-from-the-hip style.

David said he will appeal Buchwald's contempt order. He went on to explain why he believes he will succeed where Aereo and ivi TV have not:

Our technology is new technology (similar to that before the court in Aereo but not the same entirely - in fact far more developed), which was not before Judge Buchwald in the underlying action, FilmOn is entitled to a compulsory license as a cable provider. The technology employed by FilmOn is not "streaming" technology, as was the case in ivi. Because of important technological distinctions, the new technology qualifies as a cable service, without necessarily disturbing the ruling [on] ivi.

David also complained that press coverage of FilmOn was unfair, specifically referencing earlier coverage on Ars and Techdirt. He prefaced his e-mailed statement by saying he was providing his thoughts on the contempt order despite "the risk of you writing biased shit."

"It is unfortunate that there are people writing these types of stories and probably like yourself Joe, which purport to be factual in nature, but are really no more than biased opinion and unsupported speculation," continued David.

David has sparred in court with several big media companies over the years, though not always as a defendant. He sued CNET in 2011, saying the company should be held liable because it offered LimeWire to users via a download site. Most recently, another one of David's companies, Hologram USA, unsuccessfully tried to block the producers of the Billboard Music Awards from portraying a hologram of Michael Jackson, saying they held patents on the relevant hologram technology.